Look at me!

My mom has this cute flowercart in her front yard so I thought I would put Amelia up in front of it and see if she could stand.

I am typing this with Amelia on my lap, and she is fighting to get at the keyboard to send a message to her dad, so here goes: 7h nmjyrryhb74jf vy6 gg (Translation: I love you and miss you, daddy.)

Grandma Sally's garden

Mimi in front of Grandma's tulips

Tipalicious the Sheltie

Smiling while plotting to pull out the tulips

Saving the world from a giant ant invasion.

Amelia and I are here in Wisconsin. Despite being here for sad circumstances, we are having a really good time. The weather is beautiful, and my mother's garden is gorgeous, and we love spending time in the back yard. Amelia has never played in grass this nice and soft before.

First taste of rhubarb

So here we are in Wisconsin, at my parents's house. I thought Amelia would like to try some rhubarb, something that I practically lived on in the summers when I was a kid. I'm not sure if she likes it.

Amelia wants to say hi to her daddy, and that she misses him.

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Uploaded by Hen7975

And here is the video of Amelia eating rhubarb. To play, click it, wait a second, then click again. Enjoy!

Aloise Sowinski 1918-2007

Last night, my dad called to tell me that my Grandpa Al died last night, May 24th, 2007. He was 89 years old. His funeral will be on Tuesday, one day before my grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary. Amelia and I will be flying to Wisconsin on Sunday, and staying until Thursday. As far as grandfathers go, he was the best, and I still can't believe I won't see him again. I love you, Grandpa!

Aloise "Al" Sowinski, 89, Rothschild, died Thursday, May 24, 2007, at his home. Al was born April 8, 1918, the son of the late Paul and Agnes (Skarwecki) Sowinski. He married Betty Duggan in Hollywood, CA., on May 30, 1942. Al volunteered for the draft in 1940 being the first from Marathon County. He spent five years in the service, thirty eight months in New Caledonia and Guadalcanal in the 52nd Ammo. Ord. supplying ammunition in the South Pacific. His rank was T. Sargent. Returning to the United States, Al became an apprentice bricklayer with Hoffman Construction Co., later working for Wergin Construction retiring after more than 30 years as a mason foreman and served as president of the Local Bricklayers Union. One of his work projects were the St. Therese school and church, where he is a member serving on the building and grounds committee, an active usher, and lay minister for masses and funerals. Al was a life member of Knights of Columbus Council #4628 serving as program chairman and a Grand Knight, he volunteered as a Packar assisting Father Lynch. During his free time he enjoyed fishing and golfing with his brother Alvin, playing softball, or dartball with St. Therese. Survivors include his wife, Betty, at home; three daughters, Marcia Spacher, Linda (Jack) Schade, and Sally (Tom) Driscoll; one son, Paul (Virginia) Sowinski; six grandchildren, James (Michele) Driscoll, Erin (Austin) Henderson, Dana (Jeff) Jones, Dan (Diana) Spacher, Alex and Rachel Sowinski; nine great-grandchildren, many nieces and nephews; two sister in-laws, Theresa Sowinski and Sally Tramitz. Al is preceded in death by his parents Paul and Agnes, two brothers, Alvin and Chester Sowinski, and two sisters, Stella Kopliz and Angeline Zieglmeier. A Funeral Mass will be at Noon Tuesday, May 29, 2007, at St. Therese Catholic Church, Rothschld. Father Robert Strevler will officiate. Burial will follow at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Kronenwetter. Visitation will be from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday with a Knights of Columbus prayer service at 7 p.m. at the Hayden-Buettgen Funeral Home, Schofield and will continue at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the church.

The Current State of Television Programs

Oh wow, I'm bored. I have no scrapbooking to do, since I haven't had any photos developed in a while. I'm expecting some pictures to come from snapfish in a few days, so I will have something to do this weekend. And that also means that the grandparents and aunts and uncles will get some more pictures in the mail. I'm also going to be working on the Family Memory scrapbook this weekend, so those of you who sent me original photos, I will get those copied and returned to you next week...thanks for sending them!

But the whole point of this post is to say that nothing is on TV anymore. After tomorrow, nothing decent will be on TV for months. Grey's Anatomy's season finale was last week, and tomorrow is the season finales for American Idol (go Jordin!) and Lost. And while I'm on that subject, some of you better start watching Lost, because if that show gets cancelled before I figure out everything, the Henderson household will be pretty mad. Austin and I love that show, although, it was way easier to handle when we watched the first and second seasons on DVD (we started watching it in Nov 05) because then we didn't have to wait a week for the next episode. After tomorrow, I hear the next season starts in Feb 08.

Oh, and here's a picture of Amelia with her foot jammed in her mouth. Enjoy!

Who needs toys when you have packing material?

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Uploaded by Hen7975

Here's a video I took of Amelia a few days ago. Since Amelia is so mobile now, I take her to an empty bedroom in our house to play, since there is no furniture and nothing to get hurt on. I keep a box of toys for her to play in. I had bought my sister a Boppy recently, and I hadn't gotten a chance the throw the air packs away that cushioned it during shipping. I thought Amelia would like the sound the packs made, but I didn't know just how much she would like it. I think it's funny how several times she reaches into her toy box, only to return right back to the air packs.

(Don't ever let a baby play around this stuff unsupervised!)

Putting Things in Perspective

At 5am on Friday morning, I woke up to Amelia crying, and when I went to feed her, she was burning hot, so I took her temperature, and it was almost 102'F. Being a first time mom, I panicked, and consulted my "What to Expect the First Year" book to see what to do, and then stripped off her pajamas and gave her a dose of motrin to lower the temperature. I called in to work to let them know I was going to have to take a day off, then we both went back to sleep.

Amelia woke up at 10am and then the fun began! She spent the whole day screaming and crying, and was drooling like crazy and biting whatever she could get her mouth on. To make it worse, she only took a 1/2 hr nap all day, instead of her normal 2-3 hrs of naps a day. By the time she went to bed around 9pm, Austin and I were both exhausted. So my sister-in-law Shelly calls around 10pm, and asks me how my day was. I said, "Well, it's been the worst day of my life!" And she says, "Me too!" Shelly always has good stories, so I said, "You tell me yours, and then I'll tell you mine."

So Shelly tells me how her 3 year old is sick with a stomach virus and is so dehydrated that he almost needed to be hospitalized. Also, their 12 yr old son Austin's leg was injured at school last week (I think he ran into a fence, and a screw punctured his knee) and it is now infected and massively swollen). Then, their 14 year old, Zachary, also came down with the stomach virus, and is throwing up. Shelly's husband Jim (my brother) came home from work, also with the stomach virus. To top it all off, Shelly has 8 month old Sophie to deal with. Their other 12 year old, Randy isn't sick at the moment, but only because he had the bug last week. So Shelly has to take care of 4 sick or injured people! Shelly's a nurse, so everybody is in really capable hands, but wow! I thought I had it bad with 1 teething baby, but Shelly has to deal with a lot more than me.

Compared to what Shelly has to deal with, this is nothing...but it was still a rough weekend... Amelia was still crabby and miserable all day Saturday and today. Our nerves were shredded from the constant crying, and I was exhausted from getting up with her every 1-2 hours all night. She finally calmed down tonight, and went to bed at 8pm...a reasonable hour. Before she fell asleep, I saw what looked like one of her top front teeth just about ready to poke out...so hopefully I will have some new toothy pictures to post soon!

Special Pictures for Grandma Kathy

We tried to get Amelia to talk to Grandma Kathy on the phone today, but she wouldn't even make one squeak...which is pretty unusual, especially for all the crying and whining and yelling she's done this weekend (will explain that in the next post). So, to make up for Amelia not saying hi, I took these pictures just for her. Hi Grandma Kathy!

Play the "Guess the Family Resemblance" Game!

I took this picture of Amelia a few days ago, and as I was viewing the picture, I was struck by how much Amelia resembles a particular family member from this angle. I'll give you a hint...it is from my side of the family. Any guesses?

Please vote for our pictures!

So I have this great idea that I want to have Amelia's picture on a bottle of Jones soda. So I sent in a few pictures of Amelia to see if they will choose one of them. So what can you do? Vote for us! All you have to do is cut and paste each link into your web browser, and vote for my pictures. Of course, I'd love it if you would give me a "10" on all of them. You can only vote once from a computer (it tracks your IP address) so, please pass this info on to anybody you know that would vote for us.

Thanks!

www.jonessoda.com/gallery/view.php?ID=0000787826
www.jonessoda.com/gallery/view.php?ID=0000787821
www.jonessoda.com/gallery/view.php?ID=0000787819
www.jonessoda.com/gallery/view.php?ID=0000787808

Splish Splash!

Today it was really hot, over 80'F, and very sunny. I had been thinking about getting Amelia a baby pool to splash around in, but as I was about to go get one, I realized that even a small 4' round one wouldn't fit in our Scion. I thought we were out of luck, but then I realized that I could McGyver the bottom of her exersaucer into a splash pool. I added about a half-inch of water from the hose, and then set up the sprinkler to trickle water in it. I slathered Amelia in sunscreen and added a hat, and we were ready to splash. I wasn't sure how she likes it, because I thought she hated baths (the last time I tried a tub bath on her was 2 months ago, and she screamed so hard she turned purple, so I just give her kitchen sink and sponge baths). But as you can see from the pictures and the video, she loved it, and she splashed for about 20 minutes before I took her out to dry off.

(Progress! After the positive pool time, Amelia had her first tub bath in months about 2 hours ago, and she loved it!)

Mimi Screams for Ice Cream!

Yesterday, I drove to Dairy Queen to get Amelia her first ice cream cone. It's only about a 3 minute drive, but I barely made it back before it melted away because it was so hot outside. Amelia loved the cone, and dove right in. She ate about half of it before I had to take it away because it had melted down to almost nothing. You can see by her smile in the last picture that she really liked it!

New Milestone!

These look like normal pictures of Amelia, but they were taken about a second after she moved from her hands and knees back into a sitting position for the very first time! I just couldn't get to my camera in time, but you can tell from the first picture that she was surprised by what she did, and maybe showing off a little too!

Super Happy Thoughts for Grandpa Al

The handsome man in the picture is my Grandpa Al. Amelia met him in Wisconsin when she was 5 months old. I heard from my mother today that my Grandpa was admitted to the hospital this morning. He has heart disease, for some time, and my mother reports that he likely has kidney failure and possibly liver failure. Grandpa is 89 years old, but we really need him around for a while yet. He has been married to my Grandma Betty for well over 60 years. He is a great man, and an awesome grandfather, so I'm asking for everybody to think super happy thoughts for him so he can get better and go home. I love you, Grandpa!!!

Spring is here!

Here are some pictures I took of Amelia on Saturday afternoon. The overalls were a gift from Amelia's Aunt Dana (my sister). I tied the ribbon on to one of the straps because it was cute and also gave her something to do, so she could pull and chew on it.

The pictures were taken in our backyard, and it's hard to believe the lawn was mowed just last a week earlier...everything grew so fast!

Special Request

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Uploaded by Hen7975

Today, my mom said to me, "I hope you put some more videos of Amelia on your website!" So after work, even though I was battling a really bad headache, I got out the camera and took a short video of Amelia. She sits like a pro now, as you can see in the video. So here you go, Grandma Sally...I hope you like it!